


We Sing Our Sorrows to the Moon

by FelicityGS



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, aka let's circle around the myths that make me saddest shall we
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 12:44:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelicityGS/pseuds/FelicityGS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can still taste blood in his mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Sing Our Sorrows to the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> A little thing I wrote for Vali-the-god and not the character, because apparently there's nothing I love more than circling around the stories that make me saddest. 
> 
> There's really no lore at all that even vaguely suggests that this is a thing that happened, but once I had the thought it wouldn't let me go until I wrote it down. It's at least a nice thought.

He can still taste blood in his mouth as he runs.

("better you than them")

He feels too small, too big, legs out of sync. Fumbles, falls, rolls down a ditch, sticks and brambles and mud clinging to fur as he gets back to (four) feet. He glances back once, ears laid flat to his skull (they didn't used to do that)--he can still hear--

("you're swifter")

He runs.

***

He starts to get a sense for his feet. He isn't quiet--not really--but he doesn't need to be right now and running is better than thinking. It's exhausting.

He can still taste blood in his mouth.

His foot catches--front one, right, and he tumbles to a stop. It hurts, aches up his arm-leg, and he lays in leaves and mud for a moment, stunned.

He needs to move. He tugs--it hurts.

He thinks about chewing through the trap, it looks like wood, but he doesn't quite know his mouth anymore and he doesn't want to taste any more blood. Not tonight. Not ever.

He tugs again. Tries to curse, instead growls. The hurt is barely a distraction from the ache in his chest, building, building worse now that he isn't moving anymore. He can't cry, not like this, but he needs something to let it out. He needs to move, he needs to get away

("be kind, and swift")

He howls.

***

A day. Two.

***

He hears someone approach, flicks an ear towards them. The sun is starting to filter through the trees again, he should be trying to get away.

He stays still.

He lifts his eyes to look at her--a hunter. A giantess. He’ll likely die here, trapped in this skin not his own, and he wonders idly if she will at least be as kind (swift) as he tried to be.

She stares down at him, frowning. He can see a bow and arrow, knives at her waist, but it is likely the spear she has in hand she’ll use.

“You are not a wolf,” she tells him. He blinks at her, tries to speak. Whines in the back of his throat, instead. She adds, “Remember that,” then she comes closer, close enough he could bite her if he wanted. One hand smoothes down his muzzle, wraps around to keep his jaw closed. The other brushes against the trap--then springs it free easily. She studies his hand-paw, brushes against it, and he jerks with a muffled yelp.

It still hurts, throbs.

“Broken,” she tells him. “Unlucky for you.” She lets go of his muzzle. Before he can get to his feet, she scoops him into her arms.

She’ll likely eat him. Isn’t that what giantesses do to travelers who wander too close to their homes? He doesn’t know. He’s met Gerd, and she never threatened to eat him--he wasn’t a wolf, though, not then.

“Rest,” she says, shifting him in her arms so she only has to carry him with one and can pick up her spear again.

It seems a poor idea, but he closes his eyes anyway.

***

After bracing his forelimb, she dumps a bucket of water on him and laughs as he sputters. As he tries to find his feet, she grabs the scruff of his neck and begins to--pet? no, scrub. Scrub. Lather.

He whines, resigning himself to the bath. She smiles.

She has a nice smile.

“There,” she says, leaning back on her heels after yet another bucket of water, hands resting on her thighs. He shakes, spraying water over her, but she only laughs again.

She has a kind laugh.

“Come, then,” she says, and she leads the way inside.

***

His leg heals. He has a limp. He learns to hunt, a little. Mostly he follows her--Angrboda--and stops when she stops, stays when she gestures.

(He is not very good at hunting. Hates the feel of life bleeding across his tongue. Reminds him of _swift_ and _kind_ and _better you than them_.)

Angrboda does not seem to mind.

“You remind me of my son,” she says one night, then laughs like she’s made a joke. He blinks at her, ears flicking forward, but he doesn’t think she’s mocking. “Well, a little. He’s a wolf--not like you. If he were here, he’d teach you how to fit better to your skin.”

He snorts, rests his head on her lap. As if there is fitting better when he still wakes sometimes, unsure what has happened and trying to stand only to feel his tail thump the floor, or his paws slip, legs tangling each other.

She strokes behind his ears.

“You’ll manage it,” she tells him.

***

He wakes to the ground trembling, sound of the weaker trees falling.

“Earthquake,” Angrboda says, already awake and staring out the door.

They go out when the ground stops shuddering. He does not think they are coming back, not soon. She has her spear and her knives, her bow and her pack. She secures a russack to him; he cranes his head back to nose at it--it smells like cured meat, salves.

He questions, soft and in the back of his throat, looking up at her.

“When do you remember an earthquake here?” she asks.

He doesn’t know. Doesn’t remember. Doesn’t want to. Earthquakes are things of giants, things of beginning. He does not like beginnings, not anymore. He lays his ears back, tail low.

They set off.

***

A second earthquake. A third. Regular, spaced apart like doled out suffering. He buries his face in Angrboda’s side; she hums, scratching behind his ears.

They travel weeks through the forest until they reach plains, travel farther. The moon waxes full, fills his chest with promises of ill news, and he howls to ease the ache beneath his breast.

“You feel it too,” she says. He curls up against her, miserable.

There’s another earthquake that night.

***

They reach a village. Aesir. He pauses as Angrboda continues; she stops. Studies him a moment.

(He’s a wolf-that-is-not-a-wolf. Kinslayer, outsider. He does not want to die, not anymore. Not here, now.)

“Stay,” she says.

He’s grateful for the pretense.

***

He waits at the edge of the wood. Waits through the night, the next day. Stays at where stead meets wood and hides beneath a fallen tree when hunters tromp past. Tries not to shake for fear he’ll rustle the leaves. They leave.

It’s dark here, safe. He puts a paw over his nose and sleeps.

That is where she finds him. They leave the village and once the moon and stars are the only light, she stops. Gives him food, scratches behind his ears--but she has been quiet other than enough noise to wake him, and he worries what she learned.

“Can you write?” she asks at last.

He nods.

“What’s your name?”

He drags his lame paw through the dirt--four runes, badly drawn.

She nods.

“You killed your brother,” she says.

 _Mercy_ , he wants to say. To howl. He can only growl, inarticulate and furious, fur bristling.

“I thought so,” Angrboda says. She doesn’t say anything else, tilts her head back to look at the stars, tapping her fingers on her spear.

Slowly, he starts to think she doesn’t mean to hurt him. That she understands.

He whines.

“Let’s go home,” she says. “There’s little we can do. Let the wolves-that-are-wolves break their chains when they are ready.”

He does not understand what she means--does not want to--but she looks at him sadder than she ever did when she first found him.

***

The earth keeps rumbling. He gets used to it, used to avoiding branches that tumble and fall, rocks that crack and rocks that try to crush the rest of his limbs. He does not know what has made the mountain at the edge of Angrboda’s wood so unhappy--that is what she tells him, that there were poor doings and the mountain mourns them.

(He thinks of _better you than them_ and _swift_ and _kind_ ; these have to do with the way the earth trembles. It is in what she did not say.)

(The Aesir are not swift nor kind in their dealings.)

He is not much of a wolf. He cannot hunt well, he limps. He follows a giantess and depends on her kindness so his belly doesn’t go empty. But he can howl his sorrow, and sometimes, when the earth groans, he sings the mountain a song so he knows he is not alone.


End file.
